On the 19th November, the Third Committee of the United Nations unanimously adopted a new resolution, demanding North Korea to stop the “systematic, widespread and grave” human rights violations in North Korea.

 

The resolution, which was adopted by consensus, condemns and calls for a halt to the use of torture, death penalty for political and religious reasons and the numerous political prison camps. The resolution still needs to be formally ratified by the full UN General Assembly, which normally won’t be an issue.

 

The North Korean diplomat Kim Song was down on it like a flash, saying the new resolution was “politically motivated and promoted by the United States and its followers in their attempt to achieve their goals of undermining our system.” He stated that the resolution was based on information, which was cooked up by some hostile non-governmental organizations funded by the United States.

 

The resolution highlights the inhuman conditions of detention, public executions, collective punishments extending up to three generations, the extensive use of forced labor, limitations on every persons who wants to travel in the country or abroad and as well severe punishment of refugees or asylum seekers returned to North Korea.

 

Rita Kazragiene, Lithuania’s deputy UN ambassador, stated North Korea’s positive steps in the past year “aren’t sufficient enough and are clearly outweighed by a general deterioration in the overall human rights situation.”

 

There is also very deep concern at the precarious humanitarian situation in the country, which could rapidly deteriorate because of the North Korea’s limited resilience towards natural disasters and government policies causing limited availability access to food.

 

A subsequent UN press release revealed that the Chinese representative stated that his country “opposed the politicization of human rights, and the situation in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea should be assessed in an objective manner and called for greater attention to the country’s economic and social development challenges.”